Pink Lemonade
by Post-Twee
Summary: The good thing about this cast is I can still hold a knife.
1. Funny You Should Ask

**Chapter 1: Funny You Should Ask**

"So what did you say you tried last night?"

"Uh, one of the chocolate bars. Oh, and the Rice Krispie treat."

Kenny unzipped his backpack and started digging around inside. "How'd they work?" he asked as he reached above his head, turning on the car's overhead light to illuminate the vehicle's dark interior. They had parked deep in the parking garage, as far away from other cars as they could.

"Eh," Wendy shrugged. "The chocolate only got me a little buzzed and I'm pretty sure the Rice Krispie treat was a total dud."

"Weird. How much did you take?"

"Like a whole dose of each. I think you might've gotten ripped off, dude; somebody sold you some weak shit."

Kenny tossed a sweatshirt from his bag into the back seat of the car and removed two 20 oz. beverages. "Well, this stuff should be better," he spoke as he uncapped a bottle and handed it to the girl. "I had half a bottle of the grape juice last night and felt like I was floating through space."

"How did it taste?" Wendy asked, skeptically eying the bottle of pink liquid Kenny had passed her. A dopey looking lemon smiled up at her from the label. She took a sip.

"Like shitty grape juice tying to hide the taste of pot, how do you think? How's that one taste?"

"Surprisingly," Wendy started before pausing to take another drink, draining about half of the bottle. "Like Pink lemonade."

* * *

Kenny and Wendy emerged from the parking garage, both shielding their eyes from the early morning sun. Looking at each other, they began to walk in the direction of South Park's Airport Hilton.

"I've never been here, have you?" Kenny asked as the two walked side by side towards the towering building.

"A few times during high school," Wendy answered. "Usually for stuff like Model UN. Isn't this where Eric held that big ginger pride rally that one time Stan and Kyle tricked him into thinking he was a day-walker?"

"Yeah," Kenny chuckled. "And don't forget about Coonicon. Who ever went to that stuff though?"

"Well, don't get lost in here," Wendy warned him. "I'm not going to spend the whole day babysitting you."

"Please," Kenny scoffed. "Like that would happen. Just remember what I said and try to keep your cool if that shit starts kicking in for real."

Wendy glared over at the blond, who had stopped walking. "I'll have you know that I'm perfectly capable of keeping myself comp-ow!"

Wendy fell backwards, having collided with something mid-sentence. Some_one_, actually. She looked up from the ground to find a man wearing a red vest looking down at her. In his hands he held a sign that read "End of the Line". Kenny reached down and helped Wendy to her feet.

"You folks here for the convention?" the sign-bearer asked.

"Uh, yeah," Kenny answered. "Is this the line?"

The man nodded towards the sign he was holding. "This is the end of the line." Kenny and Wendy craned their necks to look around the red-vested sign-bearer to find a line that stretched and twisted around the Hilton for as far as their eyes could see.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me!" Wendy exclaimed before turning to Kenny. "You didn't say we'd have to wait in line for this thing! At this rate we'll be lucky if we can get in before-"

Kenny elbowed her in the ribs. "Calm down!" he glared at her, mouthing a silent "Rookie" as her eyes narrowed sourly and she rubbed her side. He turned back to the sign-bearer. "Is this the line to get in, or the line to pick up your passes?"

"The second one," the man answered, obviously for the umpteenth time that morning. Kenny sighed in relief.

"See?" he said to Wendy. "We'll be fine. Lucky for us, Butters picked up his passes yesterday. Shame that he waited in a line like this for nothing, though. Poor kid."

With that, Kenny and Wendy resumed their walk towards the Hilton. Before they'd made it too far, Wendy turned around to call back to the sign-bearer. "Thanks for the information!" she shouted.

The man waved his sign in response before calling back: "Enjoy the fifth annual South Park Anime Convention!"

* * *

Wendy adjusted the pass on the lanyard around her neck as Kenny finally finished checking his bag through security. "Remind me again: just _why_, exactly, did you have passes to South Park's annual anime convention?" she asked as he approached.

"I told you, Butters gave them to me. He's big into shit like those Totoro movies and that cartoon about the hamsters so he thought this would be the place to meet other nerds or something. But yesterday he came home crying about giant boobs and people without any skin before shoving his and Dougie's passes into my hands and running into his room. I guess he didn't know what he was getting into."

Wendy looked around the Hilton's convention hall, overpacked with scantily clad women and men carrying giant swords. "Anime fans are weird," she concluded. "I mean, I watched a little Sailor Moon when I was a kid but how do you go from that to putting on a big fur suit?"

"You got me," Kenny replied. "I gravitated towards other hobbies. Speaking of which, what do you want to do while we wait for this stuff to kick in? I'd say we've got about another half-hour."

Wendy opened a brochure detailing the events taking place over the course of the convention. "Something that doesn't involve interacting with these weirdos too much. It says they're showing episodes of a bunch of different shows upstairs; sitting in the dark could be okay."

"Sounds like a plan," Kenny nodded.

"I have to use the bathroom first, though. Wanna meet me up there?" she asked as she headed towards the ladies room.

"Sounds like a good way for us to lose each other," Kenny called after her. "Meet me right back here. And don't piss out all that lemonade!"

* * *

After waiting in a five minute line for the restroom, Wendy finally entered a stall and locked the door behind her; but rather than pulling down her jeans and sitting down, she lifted her leg to rest her foot on the seat of the toilet. Untying her shoe, she lifted her foot a ways out of it and removed a small bag of pot that had been resting underneath her heel. Kenny may have intended to simply use this outing to field test their new products, but Wendy had other ideas. The blond had told her that selling in such an environment would be too risky, but she didn't intend to miss out on a day of sales. Now she just had to figure out a way to dodge the boy for a good twenty minutes and she'd be set. Retying her shoe, she pocketed the dope and flushed the toilet out of habit. She left the stall to run her hands under some water and headed for the bathroom's exit.

Wendy emerged from the restroom to find Kenny absentmindedly looking around the convention hall. He turned to notice her shortly before she closed the remaining distance between them. "Shall we?" he asked.

* * *

After making their way upstairs, Kenny and Wendy ducked into a dark auditorium showing the pilot episode of an anime series that neither of them had ever heard of before; something silly about a girl who was training to be some perverted young billionaire's personal maid. They took a seat in the back row, sitting quietly as they waited to feel the effects of the edible drugs they'd consumed in the car. The first episode ended and the two exchanged confused, unimpressed glances in the dark, but remained seated as a second episode began to play.

His interest wandering, Kenny took a moment to ponder how exactly he'd managed to find himself spending a day on drugs at an anime convention with Wendy Testaburger of all people. When she and the rest of their classmates had left for college, she was the last one he'd expected to ever come back to South Park. How could he have ever imagined that they'd have ended up where they were now? He looked down at their hands, resting mere inches apart from each other.

Suddenly, Wendy's leapt up as the girl hurried to cup her hands over her mouth, muffling the hysteric laughter into which she'd erupted. A few members of the audience turned around to glare at them, annoyed looks on their faces. Wendy squinted in the dark and giggled into her palms.

"What's so funny?" Kenny whispered.

"I just," Wendy gasped out between laughs, "I can't stop thinking about what Mr. Mackey would look like wearing one of these maid uniforms! Oh my god!"

Kenny smiled slyly at the girl.

"Something tells me you and I are going to sell a lot of pink lemonade."


	2. Hoodie Weather

**Chapter 2: Hoodie Weather**

It felt so fucking shitty not to be leaving with the rest of them. It was all Wendy could think about as she scrolled past the seemingly endless stream of photos depicting packed cars and unfamiliar dormitories, a gallery of fresh starts and new beginnings that used to be her Facebook feed. She navigated to her own page, a thumb tapping and swiping across her phone's smudged screen and past a year's worth of photos, back to a few modest shots of a small room that had been the only home outside this rotting town that she'd ever known.

She let her phone slide from her hand to land on the bed beside her as her eyes raised to survey the room in which she'd grown up: her pink walls covered in Bikini Kill and Pussy Riot posters, her bookshelf overflowing with the worn textbooks she couldn't make herself return to NYU's student bookstore at the end of the last semester; heavy tomes by Tolstoy and Melville leaning against the young adult novels that would always have a place in her heart. Her laptop sat closed on her desk; above it hung a calendar that served as Wendy's daily reminder that her first day at Middle Park Community College was fast-approaching. Community College. Wendy groaned.

The girl rose from her bed, swinging her legs around to sit upright, the faintest hint of a wiggle running down her toes as they met the soft carpet underneath her feet. Her room was cozy enough; certainly more comfortable and accommodating than the room she'd had at NYU, at least, with its cold wooden floors, fluorescent lighting and tepid shower. Still, for all the comforts of home, she could never feel too fond of her own room. It was still in South Park, after all.

* * *

"South Park isn't that bad. I actually kinda like it now. There's something… I dunno, 'zen' about how quiet this place is."

"One day you'll have to tell me how your 'wilderness sabbatical' in Canada resulted in you being 100% cool with everything in the entire universe."

Wendy sat across from Ike Broflovski in a quiet corner of City Wok, absentmindedly poking at her vegetable stir-fry as the younger boy deftly maneuvered some lo-mein onto his chopsticks.

"Hey, it's not always easy being this enlightened," Ike replied. "Honestly it just makes dealing with the problems of mere mortals such as yourself all the more frustrating."

Wendy flicked a piece of broccoli at the Canadian's face before giving him a sardonic smile. As smug as the kid could get, he'd been one of her closest friends since high school, when the two had bonded over similar interests while serving in South Park High's student council. Wendy appreciated Ike's natural intellect; while Kyle Broflovsk had to spend hours studying every night to maintain his position at the top of his class, things just clicked for his adopted younger brother. Ideas, concepts, theories; everything just made sense to Ike. Now he was poised to graduate from high school early; he may have only been sixteen years old, but the first day of his senior year was only a weekend away.

"I just don't feel like I'm supposed to be here," Wendy sighed. "I'm Wendy-fucking-Testaburger; I'm not supposed to be wasting my time in a community college, I'm supposed to be working towards my masters in something and landing on the dean's list of some prestigious school miles away from here. I'm supposed to-"

"Supposed to, supposed to, supposed to," Ike cut her off. "You know, you only feel like you're 'supposed to' do that stuff because your country's fucked up government has drilled it into your head since you were a kid that the only way to be successful is to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to get a bullshit piece of paper that says how smart you are."

"Ugh, spare me," Wendy groaned, shoving her plate away. "Did you invite me out to lunch just to tell me how stupid I am for mourning my dying dreams?"

"No," Ike responded calmly as he began to pick at Wendy's discarded food. "I asked you out to lunch because I can't stand to think about you moping around your house by yourself all day. You got any plans for later?"

"I was kind of planning to do exactly what you just described," Wendy deadpanned.

"Great, so no — which means you'll be free to come to the back-to-school party I'm throwing tonight in celebration of the beginning of my final year trapped within the prison that is the United States' education system."

"What?" Wendy asked, half in disbelief. "No way. I won't even know anybody."

Ike grinned and stood up from his chair. "Yes you will," he told her, nodding in the direction of the restaurant's front desk and kitchen. Wendy turned around in her chair to spot a figure clad in a familiar orange parka standing in front of the register, picking up a brown paper bag filled with small containers of Chinese food.

"Hey McCormick!" Ike called from across the restaurant. Kenny shook off his hood, revealing a messy mop of blond hair as he turned to face the two with a look of pleasant surprise.

"Really," Wendy deadpanned again in Ike's direction as Kenny walked over to their table.

"What?" Ike asked in response. "Kenny's a really nice guy. He even does favors me for me every now and then."

"Strictly platonic favors," Kenny chimed in as he reached the table and set his food down between them. "Unfortunately, Ike's never shown even the slightest desire to take our relationship anywhere interesting."

"Shocking," Wendy groaned as she rested her head in her hand, elbow propped up against the table.

"Wendy Testaburger!" Kenny exclaimed cheerfully as he took a seat next to Ike. "Y'know, I thought that was you until how silly I realized it would be to expect to find you anywhere near this town once everybody'd left for school."

Noticing Wendy's frown, Ike shot Kenny a sideways glance. "Touchy subject, dude."

"What happened?" Kenny asked. "You get expelled or something?"

"Yes, Kenny," Wendy replied sarcastically. "I got expelled."

"Wendy's taking some time off," Ike interjected before turning to his blond friend, "and she's having a little bit of trouble finding things to occupy her time back here in South Park, which is why you will be keeping her company at my party tonight."

Kenny turned to flash an excited grin at Wendy, who immediately shoved her hands out in protest. "No. No way! I told you, I'm not going! I wouldn't have a good time."

"I know you wouldn't," Ike agreed. "That's why I'm charging Kenny with the task of making sure you enjoy yourself. You'll do that for me, right McCormick?"

"I dunno," Kenny laughed. "I get the impression that showing Wendy Testaburger a good time is easier said than done. I'm never one to turn down a challenge, though… especially when a lady is concerned." At this he turned to grin again at Wendy; a big, toothy thing that made the faint freckles on his cheeks bunch up. Wendy stared back, unimpressed.

"I promise he's harmless," Ike said, a hint of consolation in his voice.

Wendy had had enough. "Fine," she sighed in defeat. "I'll go. But if this one tries anything funny," she pointed at Kenny, "I'm bailing."

Still smiling, Kenny clenched his chest in mock injury. "You wound me, Testaburger. But as much as I'd enjoy to hang around for more abuse, I've got to get to work." Picking his bag back up, the boy bounced the hood of his parka back around his head before turning to bid them goodbye. "See you later, Ike! And Wendy… wear something cute tonight, huh?"

Chuckling, the boy turned to leave before the girl could respond. Nudging the door open with his feet, he slipped outside into the cool air of the late August afternoon. Autumn had come early to South Park, which meant winter would arrive even sooner. Seldom a day went by that Kenny didn't feel thankful for the triple-extra-large parka he'd worn since elementary school, even if he had never fully grown into it.

Kenny dropped the bag of Chinese food into the passenger seat of the rusty old red Volkswagen Jetta that he relied on to carry him around South Park, before taking a seat behind the wheel and tossing back his hood to restore his peripheral vision. Starting the car and adjusting the mirror, he caught a glimpse of his reflection, all messy blond hair, blue eyes and freckles. "Wendy Testaburger," he thought to himself. How interesting.

* * *

"You're late."

It was the same nasally scowl that awaited Kenny every time he pulled into Hattie's Gas. He looked sideways out of his car's driver-side window, only to be met with the sight of a yellow-gloved hand, its middle finger turned up and pointing towards the sky.

"Nice to see you too, Craig."

Kenny walked around his car to fetch the Chinese food from the passenger seat as Craig Tucker went about filling the vehicle up with fuel.

"What'd you get me?" he asked the blond.

"Your favorite," Kenny replied, tossing a small white paper box over to the taller boy. "Sweet and sour pork."

"I don't like sweet and sour pork," Craig deadpanned, catching the container.

"There's a surprise," Kenny mocked as the nozzle clicked in his car's gas tank. He dug a wrinkled twenty dollar bill out of his pocket and slid it into Craig's palm, his hand lingering against the other boy's glove. "It's Saturday. You got anything for me?"

Craig sighed before pulling a white envelope out of his back pocket and handing it to Kenny, who tucked it into his parka.

"How much?" the blond asked.

"Craig dropped the gas nozzle back into its cradle. "Four-seventy."

Now it was Kenny's turn to sigh. "That's low, even for you."

"Crawl out of my ass, McCormick," Craig replied in a low tone. "I'll make it up next week. First week of school, somebody's bound to be having a party."

"You're lucky you're so tall, dark and handsome, Tucker," Kenny chimed as he climbed back into his car. "Try as I might, I can never quite seem to stay mad at you." He turned his key in the ignition and started the car towards Hattie's rear employee parking, offering Craig a quick wave out the window without turning his head to say goodbye. A cursory glance in the rearview was all he needed to see Craig Tucker flipping his own personal farewell.

* * *

Kenny pulled his car into a space behind Hattie's and made his way hastily across the parking lot to the small convenience store's rear entrance. He was already late enough and he still needed to clock in. Punching in the back door's security code, he turned the handle and flung open the door, slipping inside as he pulled on his maroon work polo, the store's logo emblazoned above its breast pocket. After a quick stop in the supply room to grab a hand-held walkie talkie to stay in touch with Craig outside, the blond finally clocked in and took his place behind the store's counter.

Settling himself behind the register, Kenny looked around the store. In the year he'd been employed by Hattie's Gas-and-Go Kenny had never once seen the place truly busy. Even now, the store played host to a sole customer browsing the magazine rack as he waited for Craig to finish filling his car up with fuel outside. Today was Saturday though, a day of the week which always brought a customer that Kenny could not afford to miss.

He picked up the walkie talkie and depressed the small button on the side to signal Craig. "Jimbo hasn't been in yet, has he?" he spoke into the radio, looking out the window to see Craig hanging his gas nozzle back up and disappearing into the kiosk that stood alongside the pump.

"No," came a staticky reply.

Kenny let out a slight sigh of relief before the store's customer approached the counter, discretely handing Kenny a pornographic magazine that he'd selected from the back of the magazine rack. Kenny rang up the magazine and slipped it into a thin brown paper bag before handing it back to the man with a wink.

"Great spread this month," he smiled. The customer let out a grunt in reply and handed Kenny a few dollars. After taking his change, the man was gone, leaving Kenny to await the next weary traveler to wander into Hattie's in search of cigarettes, gum or a bathroom. Whenever that would be. But while Kenny may not have appreciated the boredom in the same capacity as Craig Tucker, he could at least tolerate it. After all, he wasn't really under the impression that he'd be in for much excitement back when he first took this job.

Deserting his post behind the counter, Kenny walked over to the magazine rack to browse for a moment himself, eventually selecting the latest issue of the Red Racer comic series, which he'd only started reading out of curiosity after Craig had refused to shut up about it one of the times they'd gotten shit-faced together after work. But before Kenny could begin the comic, the chime of a small bell above the store's entrance brought his attention to the one customer he'd been waiting for.

"How's my favorite honorary nephew doin'!" greeted Jimbo Kern, extending a hand in good spirits.

"You got some other honorary nephews I don't know about?" Kenny joked in reply, slapping Jimbo's palm. "How's the shop this week?"

"You tell me," Jimbo mused, "You _are_ my most valuable employee, after all."

Kenny removed the envelope Craig had handed him earlier and slid it over the counter. "Eh," he started. "Business was a little slow this week. I have a good feeling about next week, though. I hear an early autumn does miracles for the hunting market."

Jimbo pocketed the envelope. "Here's hoping for you and me both, kid! Which reminds me, I believe you've earned this." Jimbo removed a paycheck with Kenny's name on it from his wallet and handed it to the boy. "Don't spend it all in one place, now."

"I won't, uncle," Kenny chuckled in reply as he took the paycheck from the older man's hand before turning to comb through the cigarette display behind him. "Marlboros?" he asked without turning his head.

"My usual."

* * *

After a few more minutes of small talk, Jimbo was gone, leaving Kenny to relax behind the counter alone. He took another look at his paycheck from Kern's Sporting Goods, eying the sum scrawled underneath his name. Not bad, but next week's return wouldn't be quite as good. Hopefully, Kenny could start things off on the right foot this week at Ike's party tonight. That is, if he didn't let himself get distracted by the fact that he'd be chaperoning one of his old friend's ex-girlfriends, that is. Kenny had almost forgotten about Wendy. He'd almost managed to forget about that peculiar energy he'd felt in the pit of his stomach after Ike first suggested they should keep each other company at the party, too. The blond tapped a finger to his nose. Curiouser and curiouser.

* * *

Kenny's shift passed slowly. So slowly that he had to resort to making a game out of dusting the shelves. Setting a deliberate pace for himself, Kenny moved in even loops around the store. There were six shelves on each wall, three walls of shelving. If Kenny could finish each shelf in three minutes and thirty seconds, he could finish the entire shop in exactly sixty minutes (accounting for an extra three seconds to move from shelf to shelf, of course). That was a whole hour down. Kenny would have to remember the game for the next time the clock seemed to be moving as slow as it was today.

After reorganizing the magazine rack alphabetically by publisher, Kenny looked out the store's scratched windows to watch Craig filling up the first car they'd received in almost forty minutes. The taller boy looked up from the pump before giving Kenny a subtle shake of his head. There wouldn't be any sale there. The market had only been getting drier. Kenny left the window and returned to the broken office chair behind the register.

After ripping a sheet of lined yellow paper from a legal pad next to the register, Kenny began to scribble memorized numbers in a vertical line to reveal a steady decline over the last three months. Unless something changed, August was going to be Kenny's worst month since the time Mr. Mackey tried to quit. The cowbell on the door startled the blond out of his thoughts. He flipped the paper over before looking up to find that it was just Craig.

"What wrong with _you_?" his coworker asked, dropping a bag of Cheesy Poofs on the counter in front of him. Craig Tucker possessed the amazing quality of asking questions while somehow still displaying an utter lack of interest.

"Nothing," Kenny exhaled. "I'm fine." He wondered which one of them he was trying to assure.

* * *

By the time that the clock marked his release, Kenny was itching to get out of his Hattie's polo and back into his car. After donning his parka to protect against the evening chill, he pulled his car up next to Hattie's lone fuel pump to find Craig pulling his hat down snugly over his ears.

"Hey, I meant what I said earlier," he leaned out the window to tell Craig. "I'm super serial. We gotta get those numbers up."

"I told you I'd take care of it," Craig replied with yet another flip of the bird. "Besides, I don't see _you_ busting your ass."

"I'll have you know that I'm actually on my way to a party right now," Kenny corrected him. "Gonna get an early start on the weekend."

"Oh yeah?" Craig asked, the faintest hint of curiosity coloring his otherwise droll deadpan. "Whose place? I'm off at ten, maybe I could swing by and help you out."

"Not tonight," Kenny told him with a grin. "Tonight I've got a date."


	3. Chewing Ghosts

**Chapter 3: Chewing Ghosts**

It had been five minutes since Wendy had parked her car down the street from the Broflovski residence, but she still sat behind the wheel, the vehicle's dark interior illuminated only by the light of her phone screen. She looked down the street towards Ike's house before shifting her gaze back to the phone in her palm.

She texted Ike's number. "This is like a real party right? Like your mom isn't going to be at this thing, right?"

A few moments later, the screen lit up with the younger boy's reply. "Oh my god."

Wendy's nose crinkled in frustration. "Look," she typed back furiously, "I'm just not interested in spending my evening listening to Sheila go on and on about what a fucking fantastic semester your brother's going to have at Cornell."

"You're not sitting in your car outside are you."

Wendy had just come up with the perfect response to the Canadian's trademark sass when a quick knocking at her window startled her phone out of her hands. After retrieving her phone from the floor of the car, she turned to find a smiling Kenny McCormick's nose pressed against her driver-side window. This was going to be a long night.

* * *

"Get your butt off my car," Wendy murmured irately at the blond as she locked her door behind her. Kenny's rear remained firmly planted against the passenger door of Wendy's car; his eyes, however, were running up and down the purple dress she'd chosen to wear to the party.

"Gotta be honest" he chuckled, "When I told you to wear something cute I wasn't actually expecting you to listen. This isn't an NYU party, you know."

Embarrassed, Wendy inspected the boy's own choice of clothes as the two began to walk towards Ike's house: bright blue jeans and (under his parka, of course) a red t-shirt emblazoned with the words "Local Business" in cream-colored letters. Ugh, he probably thought that was clever. On his feet, the boy wore a pair of beat up old Chuck Taylors the same color as his t-shirt. Wendy looked down at her own scuffed Doc Martens and sighed. At least she hadn't worn heels.

"What do you know about college parties anyway?" she asked as they neared the house.

Kenny sighed, opening the door to the house and holding it while Wendy entered before him. "I'm just saying, you might feel a little overdressed at this thing."

Wendy and Kenny entered the house to find the party already in full-swing. The living room was packed with high school students, red solo cups clutched tightly in hand; some swayed to the beat of the pulsing music that filled the house while others were simply trying to hold a conversation over its deafening volume. Wendy was disappointed to notice that all of them were indeed dressed more like Kenny than herself. After surveying the room, she turned back around to find the boy hanging his parka up on one of the coat hooks by the door, like he lived there or something. The night was off to a bad start; they had just gotten to the party and Wendy was already annoyed.

"We don't really have to hang out together all night, do we?" she shouted over the music as they headed for Ike's kitchen, making their way through the crowd of party-goers.

"I mean," Kenny yelled back, "If you find anyone else here you'd rather spend your time with, feel free!"

Wendy shuddered as she squeezed past two high school boys in ratty t-shirts to finally reach the kitchen, where the music was quieter. "I haven't seen a single person I've even recognized," Wendy grumbled. "Who _are_ all these kids?"

"You know Ike," Kenny started as he grabbed two cups from beside the keg on the table and began to pour some drinks for the two of them. "He's friends with everybody." He handed a full cup of beer to Wendy before raising his own for a toast. "To South Park?"

Wendy rolled her eyes and downed her beer.

* * *

Wendy drank a surprising amount of beer without saying a word to Kenny before the two returned to the living room to find that the music had stopped playing, replaced by what sounded like a bass guitar coming from a corner of the room. Standing on her toes, Wendy looked over several heads to spot South Park's resident goth kids staring at the ground and fiddling with instruments. Henrietta plugged her electric keyboard into the nearest electrical socket while Pete tuned his bass and Firkle adjusted the stool behind his drums. Michael simply stood gripping a microphone stand, his head down and his eyes closed as he murmured something indiscernible to himself.

"Ike got _the goth kids_ to play at his party?" Wendy turned to Kenny in disbelief. "I thought they hate everybody."

"I think Ike's friends with Firkle or something," Kenny replied. "They were in the same class for a while, you know?"

Before Wendy could say anything else, the youngest goth began the band's performance with a deafening crash of his kit's cymbals, launching the four-piece into a lurching cover of what Wendy recognized as a Cure song that Stan used to listen to a lot back in high school.

"IT DOESN'T MATTER IF WE ALL DIE," Michael moaned into the microphone as the band created an impenetrable drone behind him. Wendy grit her teeth before turning to Kenny with a sarcastic remark.

"Dying actually doesn't sound too bad, compared to listening to these guys," she began to say before noticing that the blond had disappeared. Her eyes narrowed as she glanced around the room in search of the boy, but he was nowhere to be found. She couldn't believe that _he _had actually ditched _her_. Hadn't Ike told him to make sure she enjoyed herself? Fantastic job he was doing. Maybe he'd realized that she might actually have a better time if he left her alone to wallow in her own misery, she thought.

The couch was occupied, so Wendy made her way back through the crowd, putting some distance between her and the band to sit down halfway up the staircase. Resting her chin in her hands, she couldn't help but wonder where Kenny had wandered off to, what he was doing. He was probably relieved to be free of her. Asshole. Was he actually a big enough loser to _enjoy_ going to high school parties like this? Wendy didn't see him stop and say hi to anyone, which lead her to question if he even knew anyone here himself. What did Kenny have to gain from going to parties like this? What did she even _know_ about Kenny McCormick? Sure, they'd always been in the same class, but it's not like she saw him if she wasn't hanging out with Stan. In fact, she couldn't recall a single memory of him from school in which Stan wasn't standing between them.

She knew he'd followed a few of her girlfriends around, always in search of some action. She vaguely remembered that he'd taken an interest in the opposite sex a lot sooner than many of the other boys her age. But he was none of the girls' first choice when it came to boyfriends; who was going to date poor Kenny McCormick, who couldn't even pay for a date at Denny's? All that Kenny had going for him back then was a foreign, almost dirty appeal; that's all Wendy knew. Sure, Bebe and Red may have went out with him a few times, but Wendy had never been curious enough to actually take them up on any of their offers to share details, let alone take an interest in Kenny himself… no matter how surprisingly "experienced" they claimed the blond to be.

Wendy shook her head. She had to stop thinking about Kenny McCormick. Looking up, she tried to focus on the family pictures that hung on the wall along the staircase. Almost directly above her eye level hung a picture of Kyle, taken at their high school graduation, his red curls poking out here and there from under his mortarboard. She frowned sourly at the expression of satisfaction upon the boy's face, resisting the temptation to smash the glass that the photo sat behind.

Their last year of high school had held several surprises in store for Wendy, but perhaps the one thing she never could have possibly seen coming was that she'd finally found something upon which she could agree with Eric Cartman: Kyle Broflovski was a piece of shit. Sure, Wendy was smart enough to know that the boy wasn't entirely responsible for her current predicament. All he did was manage to finish high school at the top of their class, one measly place in front of Wendy. Still, that meant that when it came time for all those out-of-state universities to start doling out scholarships, _he _was the one getting all the attention, while she'd been left with nothing, no help from anyone. Wendy had worked hard in high school, motivated by the belief that if she brought home good grades, good schools would take notice. Turned out that schools outside of Colorado only had so much money to award to the students from a quiet mountain town that few people had even heard of before. That was when Wendy learned just what a small pond her town really was. If you weren't the absolute biggest fish, no one was going to help you get out.

Wendy realized that she probably shouldn't have had so much to drink so fast when she found herself struggling to fight back a few tears. Pulling her legs forward, she rested her head against her knees and tried to tune out the music that was still coming from below. It was bad enough being one of the only college-aged kids at this party, now she had to be the girl crying in the corner? What was she even doing at this thing?

"You're not having a good time."

Wendy lifted her head and blinked back a tear to find Kenny standing at the bottom of the stairs with a soft, apologetic smile on his face and a drink in each hand. The crowd in the living room broke into a round of applause that sounded somewhere between reluctant and relieved as the band stopped playing. Wendy sniffled before realizing what she must look like.

"Where did _you_ disappear to?" she asked, annoyed.

"I just left to go get you another drink," he replied, climbing the stairs to sit next to her. "I'm sorry I didn't say anything. Maybe I shouldn't have just left you alone; I know you've been feeling kinda shitty all night."

"Yeah, well you don't know the half of it," Wendy murmured, taking the drink as he handed it to her. She took a sip before setting it down on the step next to her. "I probably shouldn't drink anymore," she sighed.

"I think you just need someone to keep you company," Kenny offered as he stood back up. "Let's head outside or something, I think these guys are about to do an encore." He gestured down the stairs before holding out a hand to help Wendy up. "I promise I won't ditch you again," he smiled.

* * *

Wendy looked over at Kenny, leaning against the railing of the back porch as he drank from the red cup in his hand. She hadn't said a word since they'd gotten outside and she was starting to feel a little guilty about it.

Perhaps realizing he was being watched, Kenny locked eyes with her. "What can I do to help you have a better time?" he asked with another smile.

God dammit, she thought. That kind of shit wasn't helping her feel any less like a wet blanket. She recollected the few words she'd spat at him over the course of the evening and realized that every last one made her sound like an asshole. This wasn't even Kenny's idea in the first place, but she'd still spent the entire party treating him like an annoying dick when all he'd done was try to be nice to her. She clutched her cup a little tighter.

"I dunno," she sighed. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry for not knowing?"

"Sorry for being a total bitch!" she practically yelled back before turning to look off into the darkness of the Broflovski's yard. Perhaps in search of an escape from the goth rock coming from inside, the party had spilled over into the lawn; drunk high schoolers lay sprawled out on the grass. Wendy noticed how close some of them were to each other and felt alone. She didn't turn her head to face Kenny as he took a spot against the railing beside her.

"I know you told Ike you'd make sure I had a good time," she told him as the two stared off into the night. "I'm sorry I'm making that so hard for you."

"It's okay," he shrugged, taking another sip of beer. "I know you're going through some shit. It's cool."

"It's just so hard to feel… anything. Besides the feeling that I don't belong here."

"At this party?"

"In South Park! Everyone I know is gone! I'm the only one that didn't get out of this stupid town. It feels like I missed my one chance to escape. Now I'm just doomed to rot in this place, surrounded by hicks for the rest of my life."

Kenny stood in silence before offering a reply. "I'm still here too, you know."

"And you're okay with that?" Wendy questioned in disbelief.

"It isn't that bad," the blond answered. "I've got a place to live, a pretty steady job. I'm getting by, and I'm satisfied with it. Then again, I never had the same expectations for myself that you've always had. We can't all be Wendy Testaburger, you know?" Wendy finally turned to face Kenny, only to find that he had turned his gaze back towards the house. "Tell you what," he said, "I gotta run to the bathroom real quick but after that I can drive you home. You probably shouldn't be driving and your car'll be fine here overnight. Sorry Ike and I kinda forced you into coming," he conceded before disappearing back into the house.

Ugh. Shit. If Wendy had felt guilty before, now she felt like an absolute monster. She turned back towards the lawn, debating what to do before realizing that her only course of action was to find Kenny and apologize. Finishing the rest of her drink, she left the red cup on the railing and ventured back into the party.

* * *

"Have you seen a tall blond kid with a red shirt and red sneakers?"

"Nahhhhhh, but yo, I've seen a hot girl in a purple dress who looks like she could use a dance…"

"Oh my god, you're a minor," Wendy groaned in disgust as she pushed past the group of snickering high school boys crowded around the bathroom. She'd finally located the restroom after a good ten minutes worth of trying to navigate the party in her current state of inebriation, but she'd failed to find Kenny. Eventually, she began to consider the possibility that he'd simply left without her. Oh well, she thought as she allowed herself to drop onto the finally-vacant living room couch, it's not like she could blame him. Wendy buried her face in her hands. Maybe she could at least get his number from Ike tomorrow so she could text him and apologize. Feeling drunker than ever, she was just about tempted to leave the party in favor of falling asleep in the back of her car when the younger Broflovski took a seat next to her.

"Um… enjoying the party?" he asked as if he already knew the answer.

"NOOOOO!" Wendy moaned, turning her face to her couch-mate only to find that it was Ike. "Oh my God! Ike! I'm sorry, I'm having the worst time. All I've done all night is drink and treat Kenny like an asshole. Wait! You know Kenny. Have you seen him?"

"Uh, yeah?" the Canadian replied in confusion. "I just passed him upstairs. You might just wanna wait for him down here though, I'm sure he'll be right back."

But Wendy was gone before her friend could finish. After carefully making her way up the stairs, she peered down the hallway, searching for Kenny among the crowd of partygoers that had made their way upstairs. He wasn't anywhere in sight, which meant she'd have to start searching the upstairs rooms. Having seen her fair share of teenage party movies, she approached the closest closed door and opened it carefully, afraid of what (or who) might be behind it. But instead of giving way to the sight of two high schoolers in some state of undress or another, Wendy opened the door to find herself in Kyle's bedroom. After a moment's hesitation, she ducked into the room and shut the door behind her.

Kyle's room was dark, lit only by a number of glow-in-the-dark stars Wendy assumed he had stuck to the ceiling when he was still a young boy. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Wendy could see that the room was in pristine condition, having obviously been cleaned before Kyle had left for another semester at Cornell, one of the several schools that had been kind enough to offer the boy a substantial scholarship. Wendy looked around the room, her eyes rolling upon spotting a poster from _Terrance and Phillip: Asses of Fire _still hanging on the wall. Besides that hung the boy's framed high school diploma, along with what appeared to be a crumpled up setlist from a Say Anything concert that Kyle had attended a few years ago. Wendy practically scoffed in disbelief at the thought of Sheila Broflovski even allowing her son to attend a concert in high school.

Wendy sat down on Kyle's bed. She was probably too drunk to be snooping through the room of her old high school rival, or maybe she was just drunk enough. Whatever, fuck it. Either way, Kyle was thousands of miles away from South Park, living it up at an Ivy League university while she was stuck at a high school party thrown by his little brother, managing only to drink herself sadder. He had won and she had lost, and the worst part was that she hadn't known she'd even been competing until she was already a loser. Wendy winced a tear away for the second time of the evening. God. Dammit.

Wendy opened her eyes only to focus on a framed picture sitting on the night stand beside Kyle's bed. Wendy stared at the photograph. Kyle couldn't have been older than fourteen, but he looked even younger. She could barely recognize Stan, his eyes bright as he stood frozen, locked in whatever excited conversation the photo had captured. Wendy tried and failed to remember a single moment of her and Stan's relationship throughout high school in which he seemed as happy as he did in the photo, simply talking to his best friend. His _super _best friend. Just another aspect of her life in which she couldn't compete with Kyle.

Wendy wasn't sure why she was surprised to find that Kenny was in the picture too. He stood to Kyle's right, separating him from Eric Cartman, who of course was there as well. Maybe it was because she had never paid the boy too much attention when they were younger, or maybe it was because she was having such a hard time locating the blond at the present time, but Wendy found it difficult to look away from this younger version of Kenny. While Cartman stared out of the frame, his expression informed by some irritation or another, Kenny returned her gaze, a look of enigmatic humor playing about his face. What had he been thinking as he'd stared straight into the camera?

Looking beyond the boys, Wendy saw that they were standing in front of South Park High, before vaguely remembering that the photo had been taken on their first day of high school. That was odd, though; how did she know that? Wendy tried for a moment to see if she even remembered how she herself had spent that day before realizing with a dull shock that it had been she who had taken the very photo that now lay behind the frame in her hands. It made no sound as it slipped from her fingers, landing on the bed below.

Wendy knew that Kyle had distanced himself from the other three boys as their high school careers had gone on, neglecting the relationships he had formed as a child as he'd begun to focus more and more on his schoolwork and getting into college. She wondered if he had made any new friends at Cornell. She was sure that he must have. He must have been with them at that very moment, drinking and laughing and talking about how glad they were to be back at school — while Wendy was in South Park alone, with no friends but Ike. No friends her own age. No friends in the same sad, sinking boat.

Although maybe that wasn't the case. Maybe it didn't have to be. Like it or not, she was stuck in South Park for the foreseeable future. But she wasn't the only one. As much as she hated to resign herself to the fact that she wouldn't be leaving home for a while, she knew refusing to accept that reality like the spiteful loser she'd been acting like all night would only make her more miserable. This was going to be a long, lonely year if she didn't start making some friends. Wendy took one last look at the photograph before lifting herself from Kyle's bed and leaving the room.

* * *

Wendy couldn't comprehend what a hard time she'd had trying to find Kenny. What was going on? It wasn't like the Broflovski house was even that big; Ike said he hadn't left, which meant he had to be around somewhere, right? Finally, she decided that it couldn't hurt to ask someone else if they'd seen him. Not in the mood for any more drunken high school boy bullshit, she decided to find a girl to ask this time. Fortunately for her, a small group of tired-looking teenage girls had congregated by the top of the staircase. Wendy composed herself as best she could and approached them.

"Heyyyy," she started, trying to sound as sober as possible. "None of you have seen a tall blond kid wandering around have you? With like freckles? And red sneakers?"

An eternity seemed to pass before one of the girls answered. Wendy felt embarrassed, her inebriated mind racing as she realized that she probably looked like some poor pathetic drunk girl whose boyfriend had told her to wait for him in the living room as he disappeared upstairs to cheat on her with some other poor pathetic drunk girl. She tried to tell herself how ridiculous she was being. There was no way that a group of high school girls who were probably just as drunk as she was were leaping to that conclusion. Oh my god, what if _their _boyfriends were off cheating on _them_ somewhere? Why weren't they they least bit concerned? Why was Wendy the only one worried about this? Why was she worried about this at all? Jesus Christ, had her drunken anxiety just created an alternate universe in which Kenny McCormick was her boyfriend?

"Kenny McCormick?" Get it together, girl. One of them said something.

"Yeah, you know him?" Wendy asked, snapping back to reality.

"Uh, yeah," one of the girls had answered. "He comes to these things like all the time. Why are you looking for him?"

"Hey, aren't you Wendy Testaburger?" another girl chimed in. A few of the others exchanged glances.

Wendy was just about to tell these _bitches _to mind their own business before realizing that that probably wasn't going to help her find Kenny. "Look, I just really need to talk to him," she practically begged. "Have you seen him?"

The girl responded with a confusing look, which seemed to consist of equal parts condescension and sympathy. Finally, she sighed a replied. "Try the bathroom in Ike's parents' room. That's where he usually is."

"Ugh, thank you," Wendy groaned as she turned to make her way back down the hall. Kenny had said he was heading to the bathroom, but Wendy hadn't been aware that Ike's parents had a private one in their room. It wasn't until she was walking into the bedroom that she considered how peculiar it was that Kenny would head all the way up here when there was a bathroom downstairs, but she supposed Kenny was a pretty peculiar boy himself.

As she reached the closed door of what she assumed to be the bathroom, Wendy realized that she wasn't quite sure what she was even going to say to Kenny when he got out. Then she realized how strange it was that he was even still _in_ the bathroom, despite the fact that he'd left to use it at least fifteen minutes ago. _Then_ she remembered that the girl from the hallway had said something about Kenny "usually" being in Ike's parents' bathroom. What did she mean by _that_? Maybe Kenny usually drank too much at these parties and snuck off to whatever private bathroom he could find to throw up or something. Lord knows Wendy had enough experience with _that _kind of behavior. Still, she was beginning to get a weird feeling about this whole thing.

Finally, she decided to knock on the door. "Uh, hello?" she called hesitantly.

"Yeah, come in," replied a voice from inside. Wendy frowned. The voice hadn't belonged to Kenny. This was weird. Still, she felt determined to get to the bottom of whatever was going on, so she steeled herself for whatever was on the other side of the door and turned the handle, only to be met by a powerful cloud of what she vaguely recognized as pot smoke.

"Close the door, don't let that shit out!" someone ordered from inside. Coughing, Wendy winced and ducked inside, shutting the door behind her.

Great, Wendy thought to herself as she tried to get her bearings, this was all she needed. She looked around the room, failing to recognize any of the boys that had crowded into the luxuriously large master bathroom. All except for one, that is.

"Hey, Wendy," Kenny greeted her from his seat in the Broflovski's empty bathtub, his knees tucked in against his chest. "You found me." Any regret that Wendy had felt regarding her treatment of the boy instantly vanished as she observed the cheerful look on that fucker's stupid face.

"You're… getting… high!?" she growled at him through gritted teeth. "You're supposed to be my ride home!"

"Dude, this chick is with you?" a boy sitting on the toilet asked, eying Wendy up and down before taking a hit from the large blue bong he held in his hands.

"Yo is that Wendy Testaburger?" asked another standing behind her.

Wendy resisted the urge to tell them all to fuck off, choosing instead to focus her rage on the boy in the bathtub. "I've spent the last half fucking hour looking all over this stupid party for you when the whole time you were ditching me to fucking smoke weed! And to think I was actually going to apologize for being such a bitch to you!"

Kenny got up from his seat in the tub and tried his best to calm Wendy down. "You were going to apologize?" he asked. "That's really sweet! Look: how about we just go downstairs and say goodbye to Ike. We'll thank him for inviting us, and then I'll drive you home, okay?"

Wendy stepped away from Kenny as he approached, nearly bumping into one of the boys watching their altercation. "No way!" she yelled back at him. "I'm not letting you drive me anywhere, you're probably stoned out of your mind! Is _this _what you come to these parties to do?"

"Oh my god," Kenny laughed, "I'm not high. I haven't even smoked," he assured her as he rested his hands on the girl's shoulders in an attempt to usher her out of the bathroom. "Gentlemen, your business is appreciated as always," he spoke to the boys over his shoulder as they walked out into the fresh air of the Broflovski master bedroom.

"Thanks for the shit, Kenny!" one of them called back as the bathroom door closed. Wendy spun around in shock as she realized what was going on.

"You were _selling to them?" _she whispered in a rage, glaring at the boy as he released her and stepped away. "You were selling drugs to high school kids? Oh my GOD, Kenny!"

"Look," he started, "You need to relax…"

"Is this the _job _you were talking about? Is this what you _do _now? Sell marijuana to minors?"

"I sell it to everyone," he scoffed. "Like, _everyone_ in South Park smokes pot."

Wendy shot back a look of disgust. "Excuse me, not _everyone _in South Park smokes pot."

"Everyone but _you_, then," he taunted in return.

"Oh my god, you are _such_ a piece of shit. I can't believe I felt sorry for you. You're pathetic."

"God, I _knew _you wouldn't be cool with this."

"Cool with you being a _drug dealer_? How do you even live with yourself? Didn't your brother die of an overdose?"

Wendy knew that she had finally crossed a line when she saw the mirth that had lit Kenny's eyes throughout the entire evening quickly fade away.

"Fuck you, Wendy," he said, turning to leave the room.

Wendy panicked. Her stomach sank. Was she overreacting? Maybe she was overreacting. That definitely wasn't cool, what she'd just said. Holy shit, had she really said that?

"WAIT!" she cried after the boy, grabbing his hand to stop him from walking away. She let go as soon as he turned back to look at her, hiding it behind her back and clutching her arm sheepishly.

"I-I'm sorry," she stammered. "Not just about what I said, I'm sorry for the whole night. I've been a total bitch and you've just tried to be nice to me and I'm sorry for calling you pathetic and I'm sick of making excuses for how I've been acting so I'm sorry, oh my god, I'm sorry, Kenny."

"Okay," he nodded.

"Look…" she continued, "Can I make it up to you? I know we don't really know each other too well but I'm really not the kind of person I've been acting like tonight. It'd be cool if we could like… be friends? Maybe? Sometimes? You're the only one from school left that I kinda know and I remember you were always cool with Stan, even later on, and like since I guess I'm going to be living back here for a while I thought that it might be okay if we could like… every now and then…" Shit. What was she even trying to say? She just didn't want this guy thinking that she was a total asshole. Now he probably thought she was an idiot.

She'd fucked this up, she was sure of it. She braced herself for what she expected to be a reluctantly courteous reply from the boy, but what Kenny said next surprised her.

"We should go back to my place."

Wendy's eyes widened. He couldn't be serious, right? God, this _was _Kenny McCormick, though. What was going on? Was this his plan all along? No way, she tried to convince herself. That hadn't been where things were going. Kenny wasn't that smart, was he?

"Look," she laughed nervously, "When I asked you to let me 'make it up to you' I didn't mean like… I'm not… _Kenny_…"

"Oh my god," he sighed. Wendy was relieved to see that his smile had returned. "I'm actually _not _trying to sleep with you, Testaburger. That isn't what I was getting at."

Wendy practically laughed with relief. "I'm sorry," she apologized again, "I dunno what I was-"

"I meant we should go back to my place and get high."

_He couldn't be serious_. He might as well have actually asked her back home for a one night stand. Wendy didn't even know what to say.

"You've never gotten high before, have you?" he asked, as if he already knew.

Of course she hadn't. She was Wendy Testaburger. She didn't smoke pot, she studied. She put together food drives. She volunteered at the South Park homeless shelter on weekends. She got good grades and went to a good school, far away. How had she gone from there to here, standing in a dark bedroom, a boy she barely knew asking her to let him get her high? She wasn't supposed to get high with strange boys, she was supposed to… she was supposed to… "supposed to"…

Wendy looked at Kenny.

"So what do you say?"


	4. Match and Tinder

**Chapter 4: Match + Tinder**

As Wendy sunk into the passenger seat of Kenny's car, trying to sober up, the blond sat behind the wheel trying to figure out how he'd managed to find his way into this alternative universe where he was driving Wendy Testaburger back to his apartment. His mind racing, Kenny steered the car towards downtown South Park, his eyes occasionally darting back and forth between the road and the girl sitting in the seat beside him. Wendy stared out the window, not saying a word. She'd barely said anything to him since they'd bid a hasty goodbye to Ike. As they told the Canadian that they'd be leaving together, Wendy was sure to give the impression that Kenny would be driving her back to her own home. Thinking it best not to complicate things, or allow any ideas to form in their friend's head, Kenny corroborated the story, joking that she was welcome to spend the night at his place just so she could turn him down.

"So…" Kenny broke the silence. "You're sure you'll be alright on the couch tonight?" His voice betrayed a persisting disbelief that something like this was still even happening. When he'd asked Wendy to leave the party with him, he hadn't expected a yes. He still wouldn't be surprised if she told him to turn the car around and bring her home, to call the whole thing off. Wendy Testaburger wasn't really the kind of girl who did things like this, was she?

"I'll be fine," Wendy replied without turning her head. That was all. She'd be fine? She'd be fine heading back to his place and sleeping on his couch? After doing drugs with him, no less. Who was this girl and what had she done with the Wendy that had dated one of his best childhood friends? Whoa, maybe it was better not to think about that side of this. But how couldn't he? God, the silence was unbearable. Kenny wondered what must have been going through his passenger's mind. It wasn't long before he found that he could take no more, his hand lashing out to hit his car radio's power button and break the silence.

"SHE PUT NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS ON THE FIFTH HORSE IN THE SIXTH RACE," Craig Finn roared as the radio flashed to life. "I THINK ITS NAME WAS CHIPS AHOY." Kenny frantically spun the volume control knob to the left, the music louder than he had either anticipated or intended. Having made the adjustment, the boy looked from the radio to Wendy, wondering if the music had managed to stir any kind of reaction from his passenger. It hadn't. The girl's gaze remained fixed out the window, her body angled away from his. The song ended as Kenny pulled to a stop in front of a red light, but rather than the opening chords of "Hot Soft Light" erupting from the car's speakers, a small grinding noise told Kenny that his car's shitty compact disc player was attempting to make yet another meal of one of his CDs. Fucking great, of course this had to happen now. Swearing, the boy ejected the disc and flipped on the car's AC, holding the back of the disc up to the cool air for a few moments before slipping it back into the player. But it was no use, the car's CD player had long since decided that one performance would be enough; no encores. The light overhead turned green and Kenny gave up, tossing the scratched CD over his shoulder and resigning himself to the task of scanning the airwaves for something to fill the car's silence as it drove on into the night.

Kenny kept the car straight with one hand as his other flipped through the channels on the radio. He navigated towards Middle Park Community College's school radio station, but moved on after finding that that they were currently broadcasting some boring late night chat show consisting of two students discussing campus events. Another tap of his finger brought him to the local alternative station, caught in the middle of some repugnant butt rock. Another summoned commercials. Classic rock. A poorly-recorded orchestra blanketed by static. Sports highlights. No, no, no; how do you soundtrack driving an old friend's ex back to your place to get stoned?

"Hey… go back a few stations." Wendy's voice had practically startled him out of his skin. After a moment's comprehension, Kenny flipped back to the classic rock station he'd skipped over, to be met by the second verse of Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road". He turned to face Wendy once again, only to find the girl now staring thoughtfully at the radio. The two sat listening to the song for a few moments before Wendy opened her mouth to speak again.

"I listened to a tonnnn of Bruce Springsteen in high school," Wendy murmured, almost as if to herself. Kenny… wouldn't have suspected that. The boy spared another glance over at his passenger but turned back to watch the road as he continued to listen. Wendy spoke slowly and quietly. "I know that might be surprising 'cause Springsteen is totally like… I dunno, blue-collar working-class dude music but like, it really resonated with me, you know? I mean as a teenager, feeling trapped in a small town… with hopes and dreams about just getting out. Sometimes I would just sit in my room listening to "Born to Run" for hours, imagining that I were the Wendy in that song, that Bruce was singing those promises of escape just to me. I suppose you probably think that's lame, but it always made me feel hopeful."

Kenny could have told her that he didn't think that it sounded lame at all, but the way she said it implied that she didn't care what he thought one way or another, so instead he just sat in silence. He felt like that was a better idea, all things considered. God damn, what a peculiar night this was shaping up to be.

* * *

The remainder of the drive home hadn't been much different, but the silence shared between the two had at least become slightly more comfortable following the conclusion of "Thunder Road". It wasn't until Kenny was leading Wendy up the flight of stairs that led to his apartment that the boy realized that the silent ride would've probably been a good opportunity to brief Wendy on his living conditions. Kenny lived on the top floor of a tall brick apartment building located in the middle of downtown South Park, a humble looking structure a few blocks from Tweek Bros. Coffee, surrounded by what passed for the small mountain town's urban sprawl. The elevator had been broken since before Kenny had moved in, leaving him to navigate the five flights of the dimly-lit creaky stairwell every time he left and returned home. But living on the top floor was not without its perks; following a few idle chats with the building's super, Kenny had quickly learned the security code to bypass the locked door to the roof, a seldom-visited place that he'd found made for a pretty ideal smoking spot.

Of course, none of this really had anything to do with what Kenny had realized he should probably tell Wendy. Unfortunately, he was finding it difficult to bring the matter up this late in the game. He considered the time. It had gotten pretty late; after midnight now. Maybe it wouldn't even matter. Ugh, but things could get awkward reeaaalll fast if he didn't say anything ahead of time. Right? He should probably just tell her.

Kenny waited until he'd inserted the key into his apartment's door before finally biting the bullet and turning to Wendy. "Uh, by the way, he started, "My, uh, roommate might be here."

"You have a roommate?" Wendy answered after a moment's hesitation.

"Yeah. He's probably asleep, but I figured I might as well tell you just in case he's still up and uh… around."

"Well what's the big deal?" Wendy shrugged. "Is he not cool with you having visitors or something?"

"No he's like… really cool about pretty much everything. You uh… know him, actually."

"What?"

"From school. Like, high school. And before that I guess. Not like, NYU. That wouldn't make sense." Oh man, things had gotten awkward even more quickly than he'd expected. Wendy was just staring at him now, a puzzled look on her face as if she were trying to figure out who he could possibly be talking about.

Then came the moment of realization. "Kenny…" she started, before pushing past him to open the door to the apartment.

"Oh, hey, wait," Kenny started, bumping into Wendy as she stood frozen in the doorway. He craned his neck to look past her, into the living room to see if he was there.

Sure enough, there he was: sitting on the couch playing a video game, a glass of chocolate milk clasped tightly between his knees. His head turned to face the doorway as he heard the two enter, his face lighting up with the same dopey smile that greeted Kenny every time he returned home.

"O-oh hey Kenny!" he called from the couch, "Who'd ya bring home with ya!"

Wendy side-eyed Kenny. "You live with Butters?"

Kenny side-eyed back. "Yeeeaahh…"

The apartment door swung shut behind their backs and Butters was upon them, hovering just on the very border of what could respectably be called personal space, dogging their every step as Kenny led Wendy towards his room. Kenny doubted that Butters had seen the girl since graduation but unfortunately for Wendy, his roommate chose to forego the courtesy of a reintroduction, immediately swooping in and swarming them with all of the questions and comments and exclamations that always seemed to be buzzing around under that bushy blond hair of his.

"Well, well how's it been goin' Wendy?" he started in his airy stutter. "I thought everybody already left to go back to school; has NYU's semester not started yet? Are you takin' some time off or something? I hope everything's okay! Did NYU turn out to be a cruddy school? O-Oh I'd understand if you didn't wanna go back to school after a year, too! The whole thing seems so scary! I tell that to Kenny all the time, I don't think I could ever do it! Hey, I didn't know you two were friends, anyways! Where'd you two run into each other Wendy?"

As they reached Kenny's room, Kenny gave Wendy a glance before ducking inside, leaving her to try to begin answering the bluster of questions his roommate had blown her way. Their voices dimmed as he shut the door behind himself, tossing his parka onto the queen-sized mattress that lay on the floor on the far side of the room; navigating the space's familiar darkness, he approached the bureau in the room's opposite corner before kneeling and reaching for the bottom drawer. He opened it to withdraw the item he'd come for, a light metal lunchbox, filled with his and Wendy's entertainment for the evening. Taking the lunchbox by the handle and shutting the drawer, he returned to his feet and turned to go, before a dull vibration in his pocket made him turn and dig his phone out of his pocket. Its screen illuminated the room as it showed a text message from a blocked number.

"I'm ready to talk. Are you alone."

Kenny groaned. Of course it would be now, there was no way tonight was actually just going to happen. Ugh and now there'd be explaining to do; things had changed. He couldn't handle this tonight.

"No," he typed in reply. "Call me tomorrow." He hit send. Kenny didn't have to wait for a response

"I'm calling you in an hour," it read. "Be alone."

Kenny almost swore aloud as he shoved his phone back into his pocket. "So fucking immature," he fumed to himself, before remembering that he'd left Wendy alone with Butters and leaving the room in a hurry.

Kenny was impressed to find that Wendy had somehow managed to put a room full of space between herself and his roommate. She sat awkwardly on the living room couch as Butters leaned on the kitchen counter, stirring his glass of chocolate milk and babbling. Kenny didn't bother tuning into what Butters had been boring Wendy with, shooting the girl on the couch a look that said "we're leaving" before telling his roommate the same. Butters had just manage to sputter out a reply as the apartment door shut behind him.

"Come on," Kenny said to Wendy over his shoulder as he began to climb the final flight of stairs in the building.

Wendy remained in front of the door until Kenny stopped halfway up the stairs to turn and face her. He could see that she was kind of smirking. Well, she looked kind of confused too; but more amused than anything.

"So we just aren't going to talk about that?" She asked, looking up at him. "Like, at all?"

Kenny's hand rose to his face, rubbing his eyes as he winced and clenched them together. "That is almost certainly a conversation that we are _not_ going to have until I've gotten you comfortably stoned."

* * *

When Kenny wanted to get "comfortably stoned" he'd go up to the roof. When he'd first moved in, the place had seemed like a pretty obviously convenient smoking spot; it would not be too many smokey cool evenings, however, before he would recognize it for what it truly was: the kind of drug sanctuary that only comes along once in a stoner's life, if he's lucky. Secluded yet exposed, not only did it present Kenny with a front row view of every sunrise and sunset to grace the small mountain town, but at night he could see every star in the sky; even the building's view of South Park was a humbling yet comforting sight.

As special as it was to him, Kenny could tell that Wendy was less than impressed; she stood withdrawn beside him, arms crossed, glancing around the rooftop. The two walked to the far end of the roof before sitting down against the wall of bricks that protruded from the top of the building, acting as a railing. In the corner opposite, next to the door that lead back inside, stood a large pigeon cage that one of the building's original tenants had used to keep his pets. It fell into disuse after the man's death, but had since become a makeshift home for the local area's birds. Kenny could hear their sleepy coos as he opened the lunchbox in his lap and removed a small mason jar, a quarter of the way full of marijuana.

"Uh," he heard Wendy start before turning to find her gesturing towards the nearest corner of the building. "Aren't those things kinda creepy?"

What Wendy was referring to, Kenny knew, were the Christmas lawn ornaments. The property of another old tenant, they'd been relocated to the roof many years ago, after being found in the woman's closet and deemed inappropriate to dispose of alongside all of the tenant's other crap. They were fairly large, the five plastic figurines. When assembled correctly, they depicted the Virgin Mary and her husband Joseph praying to their newborn son Jesus Christ, as well as an angel and a small, dog-sized reindeer to stand alongside them. Kenny could kind of see where Wendy was coming from, but they'd quickly become his very favorite part of his sanctuary.

"No way!" Kenny practically gasped in reply, "These things rule, check this out." Sitting the lunchbox down beside him he crawled over to the corner, running his hands over the electric cords that protruded from behind the lawn ornaments until he found their plugs, which he stuck into a small external outlet that protruded from a metal casing on the side of the roof's wall. The lawn ornaments flickered to life, bathing the roof in a warm, yellow and orange glow. Kenny sat up and grinned at Wendy from among the ornaments. Wendy looked like she didn't know what to say.

"Hey," he nodded at the girl, "Bring that stuff over here." Wendy turned to look towards the lunchbox and the jar of pot, before picking them up and moving to sit across from Kenny, who still reclined among the makeshift nativity. Kenny watched Wendy awkwardly handle the jar of pot as she took her seat opposite him, on the other side of the baby Jesus. The glowing infant lay between them as Joseph, Mary and the angel all knelt around Kenny, hands clasped in prayer. The reindeer was there too, facing Wendy with the rest of them. Taking his things from the girl, Kenny unscrewed the mason jar and began to pack a few small buds of pot into the little glass pipe that he'd also removed from the lunchbox.

The baby Jesus may have looked like a warm fire burning between them, but it did nothing to dispel the chill of the early autumn night air. Wend shivered a little as she wrapped her arms around herself. "Isn't it a little too cold to be up here?" she asked the boy.

Kenny looked up from his pipe to shoot the girl a smirk. "Chilly?" he asked. "Want me to run back down to my room and grab my high school varsity jacket for you or something? Bet you'd look pretty cute in it. Relax," he added. "We won't be up here for long. Promise."

Wendy frowned, irritated. "Like you would even _have_ a varsity jacket," she finally replied.

Kenny didn't answer; he was too busy inspecting the bowl he'd packed and deciding just how high he wanted to get Wendy. He briefly considered leaving the pipe only half-full. This was her first time smoking pot, after all. Eh but fuck it, he decided; when was he ever going to get the chance to get Wendy Testaburger stoned again? Having made up his mind, he made sure to pack a few extra buds tightly into the bowl at the end of the pipe before handing it to Wendy.

"First hit's all yours," he told her, before producing an orange lighter from his pocket.

Wendy shifted the pipe around in her palm awkwardly. "Uh," she started, almost embarrassed, "I've never done this before… so…"

Kenny couldn't help but smile. "You don't even know how?" he chuckled. "Adorable. Here." Kenny took Wendy's hands and positioned them around the pipe. "You just hold it like this," he told her, moving her fingers around the bowl. Her skin was soft. "Use your thumb to cover up that little hole on the side while you inhale. After you think you've got enough, uncover it and finish inhaling to clear the pipe. You ready?"

Wendy gave a determined look down at the pipe and then back up at Kenny before giving the boy a resolute nod. "Like this," the boy spoke as he raised the pipe in her hand to her lips. "You just suck on the end, like a straw, and be ready for the smoke after I light it. Hold it in for as long as you can, then breathe out."

"You better not laugh at me if I cough or anything," Wendy warned him as he flicked his lighter on.

"Oh don't worry," Kenny grinned. "I want you to cough."

With that, Kenny put his flame to the tip of the pipe and hit Wendy for the first time, the small green plant burning and blackening and filling Wendy's lungs with smoke. Kenny watched the girl's face as her eyes closed and she inhaled, the spark of his lighter adding to the glow of the ornaments to light up her features. "Hold it in," he practically whispered as she removed the pipe from her lips. Her eyes fluttered opened briefly upon hearing his words before quickly closing again. Kenny could see that they were watering slightly. The corner of his lips twitched upwards as he watched the girl hold in the smoke.

"Now let it out," he told her, and she did. Eyes still closed, Wendy opened her lips and blew a slow, steady stream of smoke in Kenny's face. He lifted his eyebrows. God damn, the girl was a natural. Kenny wasn't sure whether to be impressed or disappointed. Maybe Wendy Testaburger really _was _the best at everything she did.

Wendy finally opened her eyes, looking from Kenny down to the pipe that still rest in her hand. Her gaze followed the wisps of smoke that rose into the air before her eyes locked with Kenny's. Licking her lips, she handed the pipe back to him.

"It tastes funny," she said as Kenny lit himself a hit. His lips tingled momentarily when they recognized what must have been traces of Wendy's lip balm left on the tip of the pipe. He inhaled and held his breath before tilting his head back and blowing a lungful of smoke into the night sky.

"What's it taste like?" he tested her. Smoking always made his voice a little raspy.

"I dunno," Wendy replied as he passed the pipe back to her. She took the lighter from him too, so that she could light her own bowl this time. Her movements were still a little awkward, but Kenny could detect no hesitation as he watched the girl take her second hit of the night. Bigger than the first one, too.

Wendy exhaled again. "It tastes like burnt popcorn," she realized as she passed the pipe back to the boy.

"Perceptive," Kenny snickered as he lit the bowl. "It's called 'Jiffy Pop'".

Wendy took another hit. "You name your weed?" she asked in a voice that could make Craig Tucker sound friendly.

Kenny took a hit. "What, no!" he spat back defensively. "I mean _I _don't name it. Different strands have different names."

Wendy took a hit. "Well who names them?"

Kenny took a hit. "I dunno, fucking Butters," he chuckled through the smoke.

Wendy laughed too.

Then she took another hit.

Kenny watched the girl sitting across from him blow smoke through her nose and stare down at the pipe in her fingers. The pipe looked bigger in her small hands than it felt in his, the warm light from the Christmas ornaments illuminating its swirly blue and orange glass. While Wendy's eyes remained fixed to the pipe, Kenny studied the girl's face. Though her expression betrayed no emotion, he could tell that she was lost in thought. What could she be thinking about? He supposed any number of things. Kenny was thinking about high school and Bruce Springsteen and "Born to Run". _Wendy, let me in, I wanna be your friend; I wanna guard your dreams and visions_.

Wendy finally felt Kenny's eyes on her and looked up, startled from whatever space she'd gone to. "How are you feeling?" Kenny asked her as she hurried to hand him back the pipe, embarrassed by her momentary lapse in presence.

"I dunno," she answered as Kenny took a hit. "Not too different. Maybe a little… lighter?"

Kenny nodded as he handed the pipe to her one last time. "You'll start feeling it in a bit. Take one for the road and we'll head back inside, wait for it to kick in properly. Make it count."

Wendy put the pipe back to her lips and lit it, holding the flame to the pot for a second too long. She choked as she pulled back from the pipe, barely managing to hold the hit in at all before erupting into a coughing fit, eyes watering as smoke poured from her mouth and nostrils.

"'Atta girl," Kenny consoled as he crawled over to take the pipe from her hand and pat her on the back as she coughed. "I think that's enough for one night, let's get you back inside." Wendy rose to her feet as Kenny packed his lunchbox back up. He was pleased to find the pipe empty, save for ash.

* * *

Kenny noted that his living room was now vacant as he crossed the apartment to return the lunchbox to its place at the bottom of his dresser. After checking his phone to make sure he hadn't missed any more unwanted texts, he returned to the living room to find Wendy sitting on the couch, untying her Doc Martens.

"So when should I start feeling it?" she asked, looking up at him.

"In a bit," he assured the girl as he sat down next to her and kicked off his Chucks. "It might kinda creep up on you rather than hit you all at once, but you should start noticing it pretty soon."

"Well what do we do until then?"

Kenny rested his elbow on the back of the couch as he turned to face her. "I always like to keep my hands busy," he purred, an eyebrow cocked under his messy mop of blond hair. Wendy's high may have been dragging its feet, but Kenny's had showed up right on time.

Wendy shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Kenny…" she started.

"Oh will you relax," he chuckled at her expense. He scooped up one of the Nintendo 64 controllers from the floor and tossed it in her lap before picking up the second one for himself. "Butters always leaves his Mario Kart games on for me when he knows I'm going up to the roof." Sure enough, he turned on the television to find the sound lowered and the game already displaying a two-player character selection screen. Butters may not be all there, but the kid had his moments. Kenny caught himself wondering what his roommate might have thought Wendy's presence in their apartment must have meant before shaking the question from his head and focusing on the game. He chose Yoshi. Wendy chose Toad. Kenny thought that was interesting.

Wendy shifted the controller around in her hand a bit as Kenny scrolled through the game's difficulty settings. 50 CC. 100 CC. 150. "How fast are you feeling?" he asked her.

"I dunno," she responded honestly. "I haven't really played video games since high school. Since I went out with Stan, I guess."

Kenny tried not to think about what his friend might be doing while his ex-girlfriend sat next to him on the couch waiting for the first high of her life. Instead, he settled on 100 CC and pressed A. After Kenny chose a circuit, the screen went dark, before returning with a swooping ariel shot of a pixel-y racetrack and a blast of fanfare, made quiet by the television's dimmed volume.

"I gotta warn you," Kenny murmured to her, rapidly tapping his acceleration button as the game counted down to the beginning of the race. "I'm pretty good at this thing." Wendy didn't answer; she was too busy tapping her accelerator just as quickly, her bottom lip between her teeth.

Yoshi and Toad rocketed past the starting line as soon as the light hovering in front of them turned green, leaving their computer-controlled opponents behind. Neither Kenny nor Wendy said a word throughout the entire duration of the race; they were too busy battling it out for first place. They drove neck and neck, trading first for second whenever one of them happened to get their hands on a red turtle shell. For a second it looked like Wendy was going to win, but a last minute mushroom provided Kenny with the speed boost he needed to take first place.

To Kenny's amusement, Wendy let out a frustrated groan as Toad followed Yoshi across the finish line. "Well, well, well," he gloated as the game tallied their scores. "Looks like Wendy Testaburger_ isn't_ the best at everything she does."

"Ohhhhhh shut up," she told him, eyes narrowing. "You got lucky."

"You aren't a sore loser, are you Wendy?" Kenny teased.

"Dunno, I've never lost; and we've still got three races in this circuit."

"Just don't get too upset when I beat you in those, too," the boy cooed at her. "I'd hate for you to waste your first high being sore with me."

"That's not something you have to worry about," Wendy assured him. The second race began much like the first, but this time it was Wendy who ended up taking first at the last moment, a skillfully shot green turtle shell knocking Yoshi out of Toad's way.

"Ha!" she exclaimed. "I tooooold you!"

"I went easy on you that time; like I said, I don't want you mad at me."

"Oh bullshit, McCormick. You were sweating at the end of that one."

"Whatever, you're not even winning! We're tied now."

But they wouldn't be for long. Wendy took both the third and fourth races of the circuit, winning the gold cup at the end of the final race.

"Well loooooook at that," she said with a smug tone of satisfaction. "Looks like I'm the best at everything even when I'm high."

Kenny was just about to snipe back at her before he realized what she'd said. "You're stoned!?" he asked excitedly.

"I'm fucking blazed," she declared, staring off into space.

"Hell yeah!" Kenny raised his knuckles for a congratulatory fist bump, only to be surprised that Wendy actually brought in her own fist for a pound. "I got Wendy Testaburger stoned!"

"I got stoned! With Kenny McCormick!" she said in disbelief. "That's crazy! I would have never done this a year ago!"

"My devilish charms take full responsibility," Kenny said proudly.

"Oh shut up!" she said, shoving him against the arm rest on his side of the couch. "You say the lamest fucking things, how are you a real person!?"

Kenny chuckled as he righted himself back up. "Take it easy, you'll wake Butters," he told her. He picked his controller back up. "I'm glad you're high, but I hope you don't think that means I'm going to keep going easy on you."

"Oh fuck off," Wendy practically snorted at him. Sure enough, Kenny saw that she was in no mood to lose. Worse, the marijuana even seemed to hone her Mario Kart skills. She was getting all of the good items, hitting the turns in all the right ways, and winning every race. Yet Kenny didn't seem to mind; not his constant losses, nor the periodic teasing that was making her feel more like a new friend than she'd felt all night. He was having a good time, and so it seemed was she.

But then Kenny felt his phone vibrate again. After Wendy finished leading him through Bowser's castle, he removed it from his pocket to find a text.

"Calling you now," the unblocked number told him. Shit. Kenny tried to gauge his high only to realize that we was probably too stoned for this. Not that it mattered; he'd have to take the call.

"Hey I gotta go to my room for a second okay?" he told Wendy. "I'll be right back, in like literally one second."

"You're not gonna go hide in your room and cry because you're losing, are you?" Wendy teased. "You promised you wouldn't!"

"I promised nothing," Kenny tried to joke as he got up to go to his room. "Now if you'll excuse me for just ooooone moment…"

"Yeah, yeah," Wendy murmured, pulling out her own phone. "Toad and I will be waiting."

* * *

Kenny shut his bedroom door and sat down on the mattress in the corner of the room, reaching over to turn on the small lamp that rested on the tiny nightstand beside his bed and served as his room's sole source of dim light. He pulled out his phone, texting a quick "Okay" back to the blocked number; the phone starting ringing as soon as the text had sent. Kenny accepted the call and raised the phone to his ear.

"What's up? Today's your lucky day," lisped the voice on the other end.

"It's actually 2 AM," Kenny told the caller, his tone passive-aggressive.

"I'm a busy man, McCormick! Too busy to be wasting this much time on you, actually. Are you alone?"

This crap again. "Yes, yes, I'm alone," Kenny told him, rising to his feet. "You gotta cut it out with this shit, dude. We're not kids playing gangsters."

"I have my methods!" the voice on the other end of the line shouted. "Methods that you agreed to treat with respect before we entered into this partnership!"

"Oh my god," Kenny groaned, "What did you call me for?"

The voice regained its composure. "I told you, I called you with good news. I made a connect and got in touch with that guy I told you about. The one with the plants. I just wanted to confirm how many more you said you wanted. It was three, correct?"

"No," Kenny corrected the caller, digging his fingers into his eyes. "Just. Forget it, I don't need anymore right now. If I did I could afford it but I don't so I can't."

"What are you talking about? I busted my ass to get this connect for you, Kenny!"

"And I appreciate that," Kenny told him, his hand gesturing to no one. "But I don't need any more product right now."

"What do you fucking mean you don't need any more product right now?" the voice asked. "Are you getting shit from somebody else?"

"No, no, no," Kenny repeated in frustration. "Things are just super slow right now, it sucks!"

"Sucks for _you_!" the voice clarified. "You better make sure I still get the cut we agreed on, Kenny!"

Kenny was just about to start shouting at his phone when he heard his bedroom door open behind him. He spun around to see Wendy standing in his door frame, as if in a daze.

Oh, hey," Kenny started as she shut the door behind her. "I'll be out in a second, I just have to-"

"I don't want to play Mario Kart anymore," Wendy murmured before he could finish. Having closed the distance between them, she raised her hand to cover his own, before lowering it down to his side.

"Who's that?" asked the voice on the other end. "Are you with someone? You told me you were fucking alone!" Kenny dropped the phone and the phone dropped the call as it landed on the soft carpet beneath their feet.

Wendy's face was so close to his that he could feel her breath on his chin. She looked up at him, and looking back at her half-lidded expression he could tell that she was properly stoned. Probably as stoned as he'd always intended to get her. Probably too stoned for him to allow what was about to happen to happen; if it really was about to happen, that is. It couldn't be, could it? She was Wendy Testaburger.

But then Wendy Testaburger was pressing her lips to his and he wasn't stopping her. Instead, he just closed his eyes as the girl clutched his hands tightly and leaned into the kiss, opening her mouth and letting him slide his tongue against hers. Kenny was no stranger to kissing girls who tasted like pot, but this time was different. Wendy tasted like a high, one from which he wasn't sure he'd ever come down. She drew away for breath and he could do nothing but stand there in her haze, reeling from the hit until she pushed him backwards into bed and climbed on top of him.

Kenny pulled himself together just long enough to sputter out her name. "W-Wendy are you… sure about this? Maybe we… maybe we…"

The girl straddled his waist and sat up straight. She sighed in disappointment, a puff of air escaping her lips to blow a few stray strands of hair out of her face. Kenny could swear he even saw her roll her eyes. "I'm having a rough year, McCormick," she practically whispered, her voice husky and low. She lowered her face to his as she spoke, until their noses were touching. "I really, really just need to blow off some steam." Kenny's hands moved of their own accord until they found the girl's hips. Wendy's had somehow managed to make their way up his shirt without him having noticed.

"There wasn't a single girl in our class who didn't notice you looking at us, you know. I know you got to fuck some of them, but you never wondered about me? All those years of Stan standing between us, you never wished you could be closer?" Her tongue was in his mouth again, her kiss hungrier than before. This was not surrender. Wendy wanted something and she intended to take it.

"We're not kids anymore," she continued the next time their lips parted. "I don't see why we both can't be mature about this."

That made sense to Kenny. Now it was his turn to close the distance between them, lifting his head and torso from the bed and wrapping his arms around her as they kissed. She clawed off his shirt before his hands made quick work of her dress, tugging it over her head to leave her in nothing but a matching pair of bra and panties.

"Pink," he murmured against her lips before she shushed him with a giggly kiss and pushed him back down. Her hands moved behind her back to unclasp her bra.

"I'd ask if you have a condom," she smirked as it fell from her chest. "But you're Kenny McCormick."

Kenny swallowed hard. This girl was going to kill him.

But first she seemed intent on devouring him alive. Wendy leaned back down to capture Kenny in another hungry kiss before trailing her lips down past his chin and jaw to his neck, all while her hands began to work at undoing his belt. Kenny gasped when he felt her nip at the side of his neck, sucking his sensitive flesh into her mouth, her ass starting to grind in his lap. Fucking hell, Wendy Testaburger was giving him a hickey. He wasn't sure whether to laugh or moan when she finally released his skin; his body chose the latter for him when she returned to drag her tongue over the bruise that was no doubt forming on the side of his throat. She gave the spot one last kiss before making her way down his chest and over his stomach, pausing just below his bellybutton as she popped the buttons of his jeans and started to tug them down.

Kenny was fucking lost. His head swimming from the pot, from the girl in his bed, he looked down at Wendy in awe as she hooked her fingers into his boxers. Wendy met his gaze and took her bottom lip between her teeth, an almost mischievous look in her eye as she finally freed his hard cock.

"Not baaaad, McCormick," she whispered, and suddenly they were back on the couch playing Mario Kart. She shot him a playful glance as her fingers wrapped around him, before turning her attention back to his erection. He was practically throbbing in her palm as she began to stroke and work him in her hand, her fingers playing about his swollen head. Kenny watched as she rested her middle finger at the tip of his cock, standing it up straight and eying it up and down like it was something to eat. Yet he was still surprised when she leaned in and pressed her lips to the side of his shaft, his head falling back to hit the pillow as he shivered from her kiss. Kenny closed his eyes, focusing on the sound of Wendy's slow, deliberate kisses and the soft touch of her lips against his hard cock. She kiss kiss kissed her way up and down his length, before at last pressing her lips against the very tip. Kenny finally managed to look down at her.

"You don't have to…"

"I want to." She didn't look back up. She just kept kissing until he slid into her mouth, slipping between her lips and against her tongue. Kenny leaned back and moaned as she gave him head, a little more of his length sliding past her lips and into her mouth every time she bobbed down on his cock. Kenny gasped with every small noise she made around his dick, raising his head to watch her blow him, her eyes closed as her head steadily moved up and down, her tongue dragging along the underside of his shaft. Slowly, Kenny reached out to brush away a few strands of hair that had fallen in the girl's face. As he tucked Wendy's hair behind her ear, her eyes opened, staring deep into his, brown into blue. Wendy allowed him to rest his hand on the back of her head as she continued to suck his cock, but Kenny never felt in control. In this moment, he belonged to Wendy.

Kenny's whole body shook as the girl gazed into his eyes and sunk down onto his cock farther than even before. "W-Wendy," he just managed to choke out before she could do it again. "If you keep… if you keep… Oh my God, you can't…" Jesus Christ, he was babbling like a virgin. What was this girl doing to him?

Wendy popped her mouth off of Kenny's cock and ran her tongue over her swollen pink lips as she caught her breath. "So you _do_ have a condom, right?" she asked, not missing a beat.

"Wallet," was Kenny's only reply as his head fell back to hit the pillow underneath. Wendy rolled over to the edge of Kenny's bed and reached over the side to dip her hands into the discarded pair of jeans on the floor. Kenny shifted his head to take her in; she lay prostrate on his bed, her knees bent, feet in the air, just blocking his view of her pink panties. The boy reached over and clawed at her ass, his fingers grasping at her panties and pulling them down her legs and around her ankles. Kenny's eyebrows arched. It was small, but the girl had a butt. God he was high. What a good night.

Wendy smirked at him over her shoulder as her feet went back into the air, her panties dangling from a few of her toes. In her hands was the condom Kenny had stored in his wallet. "Were you hoping you'd get to use this tonight?" she asked as she tore into its packaging. She sounded genuinely curious.

Kenny propped himself up on his elbows and looked into her eyes. They were still a little red. "If you're asking me if I was expecting this to happen…"

"I'm asking you if you wanted this to happen."

Kenny was silent as the girl grasped his cock, gingerly slipping the condom around the head and rolling it down his shaft. She sat in his lap, straddling him and resting her hands on his chest. Kenny spied a thick strip of raven hair between the girl's legs before his eyes met hers once more.

"I don't think I could've known how much I wanted tonight to happen." He knew it was the truth.

"Me neither." He hoped that was, too.

Wendy sank down onto his cock slowly. The boy watched her close her eyes and bite her lip as she took him inch by inch, her breathing slow and deliberate, his cock enveloped by her wet heat. Kenny didn't need to read the traces of pain in Wendy's focused expression to know how tight she was; he could feel it for himself. Kenny shuddered as he felt the girl open for him, pushing his cock forward ever so slightly in order to join them as one. When she'd finally managed to seat herself on him properly, she sighed and smiled, as if to herself. Kenny's hands went from her hips to her sides, before finally palming and cupping her breasts. What Wendy lacked in size she made up for in shape and perk. Besides, Kenny always told himself that anything more than a handful was wasted; though it was entirely possible that he never quite believed it until now. He felt her up and brushed his thumbs across her hardening nipples, eliciting a small noise from the girl in his lap. Growing bolder, he leaned forward to take her right breast into his mouth, sucking and rolling his tongue over her marble-sized nipple until her satisfied gasps turned to moans, her hands clasping the back of his head and her fingers running through his blond hair, holding him close as he sucked.

Kenny released her breast and looked up at her for a moment, the taste of her skin on his wet lips. He kissed her hard, and the fingers still in his hair kept his face close to hers as she slowly started rocking her body in his lap, back and forth on his cock. She gasped into his mouth and their tongues touched before he sunk his teeth into the bottom lip he'd watched the girl bite herself all night. He'd been desperate for a taste and now he tugged at it playfully before releasing it to kiss her again, slow this time as she rolled her hips to take his cock deeper inside her. Kenny's hands slid down her lithe body, back to her hips, where he gripped her and helped her move, lifting her body up and down to better fuck herself on him.

As Wendy began to bounce in his lap and ride him harder, Kenny started to buck into her, thrusting up to meet her falling hips. They were both panting now, giving each other as much as they got in return and still pushing for more. Kenny could feel sweat drip from his brow as he held the girl in his lap still and started to pump his hips fast, thrusting into her from below as hard as he could. Wendy's eyes opened wide and she gasped as he hit a sweet spot and kept on it. Slowing his thrusts, he removed his right hand from her hip to brush a thumb across that small patch of sexy black hair and find her clit. As he rubbed it in time with his thrusts, Wendy started to fuck him faster, her hands reaching up into the mess her hair had become as her back arched against his left hand, the boy underneath her the only thing holding her up.

Kenny's thrusts may have slowed, but they maintained their intensity; his cock hit the girl hard, and she responded by grinding down circles into his lap and saying his name. "Fuck, Kenny," she moaned like she was finally his. And wasn't she? He had taken her home. He had gotten her high. And now he was going to make her cum.

Kenny wrapped his arms around Wendy as he sat up and leaned forward, their foreheads resting against each other and their eyes locking through their lashes as she feverishly worked herself on his cock. Kenny knew that her orgasm was coming and that his own wasn't far behind. Yet again, Kenny didn't mind Wendy passing the finish line first.

"Cum for me?" he whispered against her lips, and she did. With a final roll of her hips, Wendy gripped Kenny tight and shook in his arms, digging her nails into him and clenching around his cock tight enough to take him right with her. Kenny felt a rush of pleasure burst inside him as he thrust into Wendy as deep as he could, emptying into the condom that served as the one barrier between them. Breathless and spent, their lips met one last time before they collapsed onto the bed together.

Their pants turned to nervous laughs as they lay there, staring into each others' disbelieving eyes, both the reality and the humor of the situation finally having time to set in.

"I can't believe I just slept with Kenny McCormick," Wendy whispered, to Kenny McCormick.

"I can't believe Wendy Testaburger fucks like that." Wendy shoved him. Then she giggled. Then they were both silent.

"Do you wanna…" Kenny started, trying to ask her to spend the night in his bed.

"Yeah," Wendy somehow knew. "You don't mind…?"

"No! No, of course not," Kenny assured her eagerly. "I'll get the light." He reached over to shut the lamp as Wendy got under the covers, only to turn back around to find that she had rolled away from him to face the window. Joining her under the covers, he shifted close to her, before cautiously wrapping an arm around her body and spooning her.

"Is this okay?" he whispered. "Was this okay?"

"Yeah," she replied. "This was nice."

"Yeah," he agreed. He could hear the crickets outside the window.

A few moments passed before Wendy spoke again. "Hey," she murmured, as if in her sleep. "Thanks for tonight."

Kenny grinned into the back of her head. "Anytime."

Wendy didn't say anything. Then she said his name.

"Kenny…" she started. "This isn't gonna happen again."

Now it was Kenny's turn to be silent. He didn't say anything. Instead he just tried to hold her a little tighter without her noticing, until he was sure that she'd fallen asleep. Finally he replied.

"Okay." And it was. Or at least, it would be.

He supposed he had expected as much, anyways. It would be fine. He would be fine. Living in South Park, Kenny had learned to settle for what he could get.


End file.
